(Feb. 2, 00) - Those aboard Alaska Airlines Flight 261 included a family
of six, a firefighter who loved risk, a pilot who also was a safety instructor
for the airline, a writing instructor on vacation and an off-duty flight
attendant who had flown family and friends to Mexico for an impromptu birthday
party. A thumbnail look at their lives:

Robert Ost considered risk part of the job and part of life.

A 15-year veteran of the South San Francisco Fire Department, he was also
an avid paraglider and mountain climber.

''To me, what he always did was risk, but he was always safe in doing it,''
said John Lucia, an assistant fire chief who gathered with co-workers at
the Ost home Tuesday.

Ost, his wife Ileana - who worked for the airline as a customer service
representative - and their daughter Emily all were on Flight 261, said South
San Francisco Department Chief Russ Lee.

Another couple, Jean Permison, Ileana Ost's mother, and Charles Russell,
both of Scotts Valley, also were aboard the flight.

Lee said Robert Ost was ''the kind of person that people like to work around.
Everybody is just really shocked. It's a tremendous loss to our department.''

Flags at fire departments throughout San Mateo County flew at half-staff
Tuesday.

Fellow firefighters at the station were in shock, Lucia said.

''It's pretty somber. I don't think it's sunk in yet.''

---

Family and friends of Alaska Airlines Capt. Ted Thompson, the pilot of Flight
261, gathered at his Redlands, Calif., home Tuesday to grieve and console.
A sign on the door read, ''The family is in seclusion. Please respect our
privacy and our grief.''

Ted Thompson, 53, flew C-141 cargo planes for eight years for the Air Force
before becoming a commercial jet pilot for Alaska Airlines in 1982. He had
10,000 flying hours with Alaska Airlines, and was a flight safety instructor
for the company.

---

After a student died two months ago, University of San Francisco teacher
Jean Gandesbery turned sadly to a colleague and said, ''We never really do
know how much time we have.''

Mrs. Gandesbery and her husband, Robert Gandesbery, were returning from a
vacation aboard Flight 261. Mrs. Gandesbery just had her childhood memoirs
published in a novel ''Seven Mile Lake.'' Her husband was retired.

''She really had a significant impact on all of her students. They did a
lot of personal writing and they got to know each other very well,'' Morana
said.

''They're really nice people. They're just such pleasant people,'' said Jerome
Vigil, who was house-sitting for the couple and watching over their golden
retrievers, Emma and Casey.

---

Linda and Joe Knight, co-pastors of the Rock Church Northwest in Monroe,
Wash., had been in Puerto Vallarta doing missionary work after 15 years of
outreach on the streets of Seattle.

The church's weekly prayer meeting turned into a time of mourning. Members
gathered to pray and told reporters they were told not to talk.

The Knights, in a July 1998 story in The Herald of Everett, Wash., said they
gathered food, raised $3,700 to build showers and toilets and worked to buy
a school building for teaching English and the Bible to children living in
poverty. Much of the support came from corporations.

''As a team, we have been able to get companies like Alaska Airlines to donate
food for the children,'' Mrs. Knight told the paper.

''This isn't one of those things where we do a missionary trip and then forget
about it,'' she said. ''This is going to be our lifelong work.''

---

Tom Stockley, 63, went to work for The Seattle Times in 1967 and six years
later became the newspaper's wine columnist.

His wife, Peggy, 62, was an animal lover and community activist who had worked
for the Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Seattle Youth Symphony
and other organizations. Most recently, she edited the Floating Homes Association
newsletter. They both graduated from the University of Washington School
of Communications.

The Stockleys were well known in their close-knit houseboat community.

''They were just the gentlest souls and always willing to help neighbors,''
said neighbor Jan Knutson.

''It's a very good reminder to us that when we cover tragedies, we're writing
about people who are loved,'' said Times managing editor Alex MacLeod.

In 1998, Stockley was recognized at an international conference in Seattle
for expanding public knowledge about wine and wine production.

''His impact was tremendous,'' said Simon Siegl, president of the American
Vintners Association. ''He was there at the beginning before anybody was
aware of the Washington wine industry and a strong advocate from the start.''

---

Morris Thompson, 61, was one of Alaska's most prominent Native and business
leaders.

Thompson, his wife, Thelma, and daughter Sheryl had been in Mexico for a
vacation.

Thompson retired last month as president and chief executive officer of Doyon
Ltd., a Native corporation formed in 1971 as part of the Alaska Native Claims
Settlement Act. The corporation has 12.5 million acres of land, making it
the largest private landowner in the United States.

When Thompson took over Doyon in 1985, it had an operating loss of $28 million.
When he retired, it was generating $70.9 million in annual revenues, had
900 employees and 14,000 stockholders.

Thompson was a special assistant to the Secretary of the Interior during
the Nixon years. He was only 34 when he was appointed Commissioner of the
Bureau of Indian Affairs. He also was a cabinet-level officer in Alaska Gov.
Walter J. Hickel's first administration.

''He is a great Native leader, very personable, down to earth,'' said Sharon
McConnell, a co-host of ''Dialogue with Doyon'' that aired on Alaska Public
Radio until Thompson retired. ''I think a lot of us are in shock about this.''

---

Cynthia Oti was an investment broker who knew how to save and how to spend,
how to work and how to play.

''She enjoyed life,'' said Greg Raab, public relations and marketing manager
for San Francisco radio station KSFO, where Oti was host of a nightly radio
show on investing.

''She told people to save and have a plan for the future, but not to deny
oneself. She said it on the air and she lived it.''

Colleagues said Oti's career as a broadcaster was beginning to take off.
For four years, she did a three-hour Sunday show, but last spring, KSFO asked
her to take on a prime-time, Monday-through-Friday slot. She indulged herself
by buying a Jaguar.

She had treated herself to a weekend getaway in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico,
where Flight 261 originated. She loved the music of Eric Clapton and collected
expensive champagne.

Oti was supposed to go on the air two hours after the flight was scheduled
to land in San Francisco.

''It's terrible news for us,'' talk show host Gene Burns told listeners.
''Many of us have lost a friend, a colleague and an absolutely, thoroughly
delightful human being.''

''She was always willing to lend her professional advice,'' Burns said. ''If
someone was having a financial difficulty, she did her level best to guide
them through the shoals of that experience.''

State government workers in Olympia, Wash., were mourning the loss of Don
Shaw, a former Snohomish County school principal and librarian who ran tour
programs at the Legislative Building.

Shaw, 63, was a father of six and grandfather of 13.

''He was just a really warm person, incredibly well-liked,'' said Sandy DeShaw,
manager of visitor services at the Capitol. ''He felt like he was contributing
in a positive way.

''It's a huge loss to us. His friends and co-workers are just incredibly
saddened.''

Secretary of State Ralph Munro set a wreath outside his office with a book
in which people could express condolences to Shaw's family, including his
wife Earlene, who works in the legislative members' cafeteria.

---

Gilbert Manning of Spokane, Wash., hoped in vain that his youngest daughter,
Sarah Pearson, 36, of Seattle, an Alaska Airlines flight attendant on vacation,
was not on the plane.

''I think she could calm the world, just by her smile. She could make people
laugh all the time,'' Manning said.

Lost with her in the crash were her husband, Rod Pearson, co-owner of two
Seattle restaurants, and their children, Rachel, 6, and Grace, 23 months.

''Rod was finally at a time in his life where he could take some time off,''
Manning said.

''God has a funny way of making you suffer,'' he said. ''I feel like Job
right now.''

AP-NY-02-02-00 0646EST

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Boeing Urges Inspections of MD-80s

By TOM VERDIN

.c The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (Feb. 10, 00) - Every airline that flies MD-80 series jetliners
is being asked to inspect the popular planes after a damaged piece of equipment
was recovered from the wreckage of Alaska Airlines Flight 261.

Boeing Co. on Wednesday asked mechanics to specifically check the jackscrew,
the part recovered from the crash site. The jackscrew moves the horizontal
stabilizer, a navigation part that is at the center of the investigation
into the Jan. 31 crash off the California coast that killed 88 people.

The recommendation covers about 2,000 planes in the MD-80 series, including
the Alaska Airlines plane, as well as MD-90s, DC-9s and Boeing 717s.

The Federal Aviation Administration said it will study the inspection records
and order further action if it finds evidence of a safety problem.

''This is the right and prudent thing to do,'' FAA spokesman Eliot Brenner
said. ''We've been talking to the carriers and strongly encouraging them
to make this inspection as rapidly as possible.''

More than 1,100 MD-80 series aircraft are flown by nearly 70 airlines worldwide,
making them some of the most popular commercial jetliners ever built. Boeing
announced in 1997 it would phase out the MD-80 and MD-90 passenger aircraft
models it inherited when it bought McDonnell Douglas.

Alaska, American and Delta airlines said Wednesday they had begun inspecting
their fleets. Some schedule delays were possible, airline officials said.

Alaska Airlines expected to have its 34-plane fleet inspected within hours,
American said it would take a week to look at its 284 series planes and Delta
said all 136 of its series planes would be inspected by the end of the week.

The jackscrew is powered by two motors and resembles the corkscrew-like device
that opens many automatic garage doors. If it was damaged during flight,
aviation experts said, the pilots would not be able to control the up-or-down
pitch of the aircraft.

Flight 261's cockpit voice recorder revealed that pilots had problems with
the horizontal stabilizer after taking off from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico,
for San Francisco and Seattle. The plane eventually plunged into the sea.

A 2-foot section of the jackscrew was recovered with the main wreckage of
the MD-83 about 10 miles off the coast. The airline initially said the jackscrew
was stripped, but later changed its statement and said only that the screw
had been damaged, reflecting the description by the National Transportation
Safety Board.

''It was unclear whether the damage was pre-impact or from hitting the water,''
NTSB Chairman James Hall said.

Meanwhile, about 400 people attended a Wednesday night memorial in Seattle
for the victims, many of whom were from Washington state.

''This is a real tough time,'' said Kelly Ryan, a United Airlines flight
attendant who lost family members in the crash.

The service at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral included music, prayers and
chants. Led by Gov. Gary Locke, grieving family members and friends lit candles
to show respect for the victims.

''I've had a chance to talk to some of the families and friends of relatives,''
Locke said. ''I think everyone is still in a state of shock.''

AP-NY-02-10-00 0336EST

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Many Factors in Alaska Crash Search

.c The Associated Press

Besides searching the main wreckage area 10 miles off the coast of southern
California, Navy deep-sea salvage teams are exploring the ocean floor four
miles from the Alaska Airlines crash site for parts that might have torn
off the jetliner.

National Transportation Safety Board officials used radar hits to identify
what appeared to be debris falling away from the aircraft as it began its
fatal dive on Jan. 31.

Finding the pieces depends on the size of the search area, the sea floor's
terrain and the number of other submerged objects that could provide false
leads.

''If there are a bunch of other needles in the haystack and you're looking
for a particular one, you could pull that wrong one out a dozen times,''
Jonathan Howland, a research engineer with the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution in Massachusetts, said Wednesday.

If the wreckage fell in shipping lanes, for instance, it could be mixed with
general debris scattered across the sea floor, providing myriad hits on the
side-scan sonar, Howland said. Even natural features could be confused with
the wreckage, he said.

''It can be very difficult to tell whether it's an outcropping of rock or
a piece of something manmade,'' he said.

Once sonar detects a ''contact'' - something that might be what crews are
searching for - a deep-sea robot examines the object.

AP-NY-02-09-00 2127EST

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Data Suggest Alaska Jet May Have Broken Apart

By MATTHEW FORDAHL

.c The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (Feb. 8, 2000) - Radar data shows a piece of Alaska Airlines
Flight 261 may have broken off seconds before the plane plunged into the
Pacific, investigators said today.

Analysis of radar and the flight data recorders portray a terrifying final
12 minutes, during which the MD-83 jetliner went into a 7,000-foot dive,
then regained some semblance of control for about nine minutes. Then it pitched
nose-down, rolled upside down and plunged 17,900 feet into the ocean in just
over a minute.

National Transportation Safety Board Chairman James Hall's detailed description
didn't fix a cause for the Jan. 31 crash 10 miles off Southern California
that killed all 88 people aboard the flight from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico,
to San Francisco and Seattle were killed.

The new data showed the pilots struggling with the plane's horizontal stabilizer
- the part of the tail that controls up-and-down motion - and a part suspected
in the crash from the start of the investigation.

There was no immediate indication whether the part that may have come off
the plane was from the stabilizer.

Hall displayed a chart at a Washington, D.C., briefing showing the plane's
path as determined by radar. The chart marks a point just before the final
plunge where radar picked up a reading that could indicate a piece separating
from the plane and drifting with the wind as it fell into the ocean.

``These primary radar hits might be indicative - and I emphasize might be
indicative - of something coming off Flight 261 at this point,'' Hall said.

Navy ships have been sent to search the sea floor where the object would
have landed, about four miles from the main body of the plane's wreckage,
Hall said.

Hall said that video mapping of the crash site was complete and an 8-foot
section of the left horizontal stabilizer and some portions of the central
stabilizer had been recovered.

The remains of three victims had been positively identified and the families
notified, Hall said.

In the week since the crash, three U.S. jetliners have returned to their
gates because of stabilizer problems.

Airline officials said Monday at least two of the incidents probably can
be traced to pilots inadvertently overheating the motors by repeatedly testing
the equipment.

``It may be that some pilots are being overly cautious and are running through
their checks several more times than they typically do,'' said Jack Evans,
an Alaska Airlines spokesman.

The horizontal stabilizer is a moveable, 40-foot wing mounted high on the
aircraft's tail. It guides the up-and-down motion of the plane during flight,
and is controlled by two motors that turn a jackscrew, similar to the mechanism
that controls garage door openers.

During a flight, the motors make more than 100 adjustments, slightly changing
the pitch as the airliner uses fuel and as other conditions shift.

On the ground, the motors can last up to 90 seconds before overheating and
shutting down. It is usually not a problem in flight because of the cold
temperatures at higher altitudes.

The motors should become operative again after cooling down for several minutes,
said John Thom, spokesman for Boeing, which bought McDonnell Douglas, maker
of the MD-80 series planes, in 1997.

``We are getting the word out there (to pilots) to make sure you give enough
time for these motors to cool down if you do go through the check again,''
Evans said.

Today, Boeing issued recommendations that any pilot with a stabilizer problem
simply complete the operating manual checklist and, if that doesn't work,
attempt no more troubleshooting.

``Priority should be given to landing at the nearest suitable airport or
where maintenance can be performed,'' Boeing said in an update to operators
of the DC-9, MD-80, MD-90 and Boeing 717.

Another, apparently unrelated, incident involving an Alaska Airlines jetliner
occurred Monday night when an MD-80 made an emergency landing at San Francisco
International Airport moments after takeoff because sparks were seen flying
from an engine.

It was not clear today what caused the problems with the plane that had come
from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, stopped in San Francisco, then headed on to
Seattle - the same flight path as Flight 261.

No injuries were reported and passengers traveling to Seattle were put on
another plane.

On Saturday, an Alaska Airlines MD-83 jet returned to the airport in Reno,
Nev., minutes after taking off for Seattle. The NTSB is investigating, but
the airline said it was probably caused by an overheated stabilizer motor.

On Thursday, an Alaska MD-80 taxiing toward the runway in Seattle experienced
``intermittent problems'' with the stabilizer motor. After returning to the
gate, the parts were swapped out and the plane took off without incident.

An American Airlines MD-83 flight out of Phoenix returned to the gate last
week with a stabilizer problem, but investigators said it may have been caused
by a faulty control switch in the cockpit.

AP-NY-02-08-00 1516EST

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Loud Noise Recorded Before Crash

By CHRISTINE HANLEY

.c The Associated Press

PORT HUENEME, Calif. (Feb. 4, 00) - One of the ''black boxes'' aboard Alaska
Airlines Flight 261 recorded a loud noise in the minutes before the MD-83
went out of control and plunged into the ocean, a federal investigator said
Friday.

The noise was one of two revealed by analysis of the cockpit voice recorder,
said John Hammerschmidt, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board.

The tape revealed new details of what occurred on the flight in its last
minutes as the pilots struggled to control a problem with the horizontal
stabilizer - the wide part of the tail that keeps a plane flying level.

The plane nose-dived into the Pacific Ocean en route from Puerto Vallarta,
Mexico, to San Francisco on Monday, killing all 88 aboard.

About 12 minutes before the end of the recording the plane apparently lost
vertical control, Hammerschmidt said.

The crew recovered control in about 1 1/2 minutes. Some time later, a flight
attendant is heard telling the pilots of a loud noise from the rear of the
jet.

''The crew acknowledged that they had heard it too,'' Hammerschmidt said.

A second noise, which was actually recorded by the device, then sounded just
near the end of the tape.

''Slightly more than one minute before the end of the recording, a loud noise
can be heard on the recording and the airplane appears to go out of control,''
he said.

The plane has an audible alarm to indicate a stall, or dangerous loss of
lift. No such warning is heard on the tape, Hammerschmidt said.

The noises - and the fact that control was regained after the first sound
- are consistent with a worsening structural or mechanical problem in the
tail, said William Waldock, associate director of the Center for Aerospace
Safety Education at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

''It sounds like something failed in the tail, and it certainly would account
for a jammed stabilizer,'' he said, but cautioned that it was impossible
to diagnose the noises without a better description of them.

The noises could have originated from any number of problems, including
structural failure or a compressor stall in the engines caused by erratic
airflow, said C.O. Miller, who headed the NTSB's Bureau of Safety during
much of the 1980s.

Hammerschmidt said the investigation was progressing rapidly, including work
by a Navy vessel using side-scan sonar to map debris in the Santa Barbara
Channel about 10 miles from shore.

Sonar appeared to show the debris in a single concentration within an area
the size of a football field, and the survey was continuing one mile out
in each direction, he said.

Some of the debris has been videotaped by a remote-operated underwater vehicle.
Most of the debris examined so far were pieces about 5 feet or 6 feet long,
but there was a section of fuselage estimated to be 10 feet long.

The submersible has sent up video of the tail and a 5-foot section of the
leading edge of the horizontal stablizer, Hammerschmidt said. The stabilizer
is 40 feet long.

The process of getting sonar pictures of the ocean floor - sailors call it
''mowing the lawn'' - had been expected to take two to three days, but
Hammerschmidt said it would likely be completed Friday.

After that, remote-operated vehicles like the one that salvaged the plane's
''black box'' flight recorders will be sent down to take video images and
eventually help retrieve bodies and wreckage.

''You can't do it overnight,'' said Navy Capt. Terry Labrecque. ''You have
to be methodical.''

The NTSB has previously said that radio transmissions and eyewitness reports
from other commercial pilots in the area show the plane turned upside down
or ''corkscrewed'' into the water following a series of increasingly desperate
maneuvers that lasted at least half an hour.

Also Friday, relatives of victims - many of whom worked for or were connected
with Alaska Airlines - were preparing for another private memorial, set for
Saturday in the Pepperdine University chapel overlooking the ocean in Malibu.
On Sunday, the Coast Guard planned to drop flowers from that service over
the crash site.

Fifteen members of various bands of American Indians gathered on marshland
near Point Mugu Friday for a ceremony in honor of victim Morris Thompson
and his family.

A prominent Athabaskan Indian leader in Alaska and former commissioner for
the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Thompson, 61, his wife, Thelma, and daughter
Sheryl were killed in the crash.

The Indians burned sage to cleanse their spirits; passed a pipe, which is
a symbol of life; took turns leading tribal chants; then turned east, west,
south and north, some pointing feathers to the sky, to honor the four directions.

Only four bodies have been recovered. Relatives waited for word on further
efforts to bring back remains.

The wreckage lies in an underwater canyon beneath the Santa Barbara Channel,
where depths range from 90 feet at the edges to 700 feet.

AP-NY-02-04-00 2120EST

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Beach Memorial for Alaska Air Crash

By CHRISTINE HANLEY

.c The Associated Press

PORT HUENEME, Calif. (AP) - Wading out into the chilly Pacific along a
flower-strewn white beach, mourners bid farewell to the 88 passengers and
crew of Alaska Airlines Flight 261.

A bright orange Coast Guard helicopter hovered overhead Thursday before flying
out to drop flowers and photographs of the dead into the shimmering blue
water. A skywriting plane outlined a heart and a cross in smoke over the
private beachside ceremony.

About 200 mourners met inside the Point Mugu Naval Air Weapons Station, about
10 miles from the crash site in the Santa Barbara Channel.

Some friends and family members cradled bouquets of white roses and baby's
breath in their arms on their way to the base. Others carried white cartons
filled with lunches, sunscreen, tissues and pen and paper.

``The purpose of it is to allow them to ... either keep a journal, write
a note and leave it or maybe communicate their feelings to each another,''
said Barbara Jean, a Red Cross worker.

Alaska Airlines and the National Transportation Safety Board officials helped
arrange the caravan. Red Cross spokesman Chris Thomas said the visit was
``one step in the recovery process.'' Reporters were kept away.

At the base, a few mourners wandered along the shore alone or in small clusters.
Others waded into the chilly surf. Some placed flowers along the shore.

Alaska Airlines employees traveled separately to the site, where they laid
flowers and clutched one another's arms as they walked in the sand.

Across the country, the airline held a minute of silence for the victims.
The employees stopped working at 4:36 p.m., near the time of the crash. At
Burbank Airport, employees held hands in a large circle on the tarmac. The
airline never again will use the number 261 for a flight.

A local pastor and business owners held a public memorial later in the day
at Port Hueneme Pier, where residents placed balloons, flowers and candles
at the base of three palm trees.

Grieving continued elsewhere.

In Bellingham, Wash., home of Western Washington University, memories turned
to a six-member circle of friends who shared a bond that dated to college,
even high school.

``They were closer than brothers and sisters could have been,'' said Russel
Ing's father, Winston Ing of Mercer Island, Wash. ``Now they're gone - just
like that.''

The core of the group was formed in the 1980s on Mercer Island, where Ing
and Penna became close friends in high school.

They met the others at Western Washington, and stuck together even after
most of the gang graduated and moved out of Bellingham in 1996. They ranged
in age from 27 to 30.

``You were able to express yourself on any kind of level and never have to
worry about being judged,'' said Allen Temple, a Bellingham resident who
knew Penna.

Friends of the group said it was Ryan - a flight attendant for Alaska Airlines
- who made a point of arranging trips, such as month-long biking and hiking
trips, to keep the group close.

He had organized the trip to Puerto Vallarta to celebrate his 30th birthday
and brought along his brother, Brad, and his parents, Terry and Barbara Ryan.
All died.

``My consolation is that maybe they were all holding hands with their very
best friends,'' said Ing's mother, Pierrette.

``Just this morning I felt that it's like they're all together. They all
loved the water. And every time I go to the beach, I'll be able to talk to
them.''

AP-NY-02-04-00 0519EST

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Key Pieces of Alaska Airlines Jet Found

By JEFF WILSON

.c The Associated Press

PORT HUENEME, Calif. (Feb. 4, 00) - With startling speed, investigators have
located key pieces of evidence in the crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261:
both ''black boxes'' and the tail control singled out by the pilots before
the jet's plunge into the Pacific.

The flight data recorder was recovered from the ocean floor Thursday, not
far from where the cockpit voice recorder was found a day earlier. Also spotted
were pieces of the tail, one with the airline's distinctive logo of a smiling
Alaskan native.

The parts were in about 650 feet of water 10 miles offshore, where the MD-83
crashed Monday, killing all 88 people aboard.

A Navy submersible sent up video images of a piece of the fuselage with four
windows, several pieces up to six feet wide and numerous smaller pieces,
said John Hammerschmidt, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board.

Also captured were pictures of the tail's horizontal stabilizer, which has
been the focus of the investigation.

NTSB Chairman James Hall said salvagers have seen pieces of the tail section.
''Once we have been able to complete mapping of the debris field, those are
one of the first pieces of structure we will attempt to bring to the surface,''
he said today on ABC's ''Good Morning America.''

Hammerschmidt declined to say whether searchers had found any bodies, some
of which are believed trapped under the debris. Recovery efforts were to
resume today.

Friends and relatives of the victims gathered Thursday on a beach facing
the Santa Barbara Channel for a private memorial.

A few mourners roamed the shore alone, some clustered in small groups and
others waded into the surf. They gathered as a group inside the Point Mugu
Naval Air Weapons Station, where they were kept away from reporters.

The cause of the crash has not been determined, but investigators have disclosed
much detail about the flight bound from Mexico to San Francisco and Seattle.

Citing the voice recorder, the NTSB said the pilots were discussing a problem
with the horizontal stabilizer at least 30 minutes before the crash. The
stabilizer, a wing on the tail of an aircraft, is designed to adjust - or
trim - the up-or-down angle of an aircraft's nose.

At one point, according to Hall, the pilots did regain control of Flight
261 - and then it was ''suddenly lost.''

Investigators are looking into the possibility that the pilots put the plane
into its fatal dive by following proper procedures for correcting a stabilizer
problem, the Los Angeles Times reported today, citing unidentified NTSB sources.

While the NTSB was expected to begin making a transcript of the cockpit
conversation today, the data recorder, which tracks electrical and mechanical
operations during a flight, could reveal if the stabilizer problem was what
brought the plane down.

''That will tell the tale,'' said William Waldock, associate director for
the Center for Aerospace Safety Education at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical
University.

Contrary to earlier media reports, there were no signs of mechanical trouble
with the plane on its two previous flights - from Seattle to San Francisco
and from San Francisco to Puerto Vallarta, Hammerschmidt said.

He also discussed interviews conducted with Alaska Airlines mechanics in
Seattle and Los Angeles. They described helping the pilots troubleshoot a
''runaway stabilizer,'' which forced the plane's nose down.

At one point, the pilots asked a Los Angeles mechanic if there were any hidden
circuit breakers to cut off power to the stabilizer. That suggests they already
had shut off one set of circuit breakers - a standard remedy for a runaway
stabilizer, also known as runaway trim.

Jammed or out-of-control horizontal stabilizers have led to at least a half-dozen
emergency landings but never a crash of a commercial airplane, federal records
show.

If the horizontal stabilizer starts moving on its own - a state of runaway
trim - pilots can usually stop it by pulling circuit breakers and using other
controls. In most cases, it will stop before reaching an extreme angle.

In most aircraft, including the MD-83, a jammed stabilizer can be overridden
by moving elevators attached to its trailing edge and controlled by pulling
forward or backward on the yoke in the cockpit.

If it jammed at an extreme position, the pilots must exert more pressure
on the yoke but still should be able to maintain control.

Though stabilizer problems are rare, regulators last May gave airlines 18
months to inspect hinges connecting parts of the tail for signs of corrosion.
An error during manufacture can cause the hinges to rust more easily.

The Alaska Airlines jet that crashed had not yet undergone the inspection,
but 10 of the MD-80s in the fleet did and showed no unusual corrosion, said
airline spokesman David Marriott. Records on other airlines' fleets were
not immediately available.

AP-NY-02-04-00 0926EST

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Second Alaska Air Black Box Found

Tape Shows Jet Turned Upside Down

By LINDA DEUTSCH

.c The Associated Press

PORT HUENEME, Calif. (Feb. 3, 00) - The cockpit voice recorder recovered
from the Pacific details the Alaska Airlines crew desperately trying to regain
control as the jetliner carrying 88 people flew upside down before crashing,
federal investigators said today. They also said they had found the second
``black box.''

The cockpit recorder captured slightly more than 30 minutes of conversation,
National Transportation Safety Board Chairman James Hall told reporters in
Washington.

``The crew made references to being inverted that are consistent with the
witness statements to that effect,'' Hall said.

The tape starts with the crew discussing a problem with a tail part called
the horizontal stabilizer, which keeps the plane level. The crew then decided
to divert to Los Angeles International Airport, but the problem became worse.
The crew then struggled to pull out of a nosedive, regaining some control
while continuing to troubleshoot and prepare for landing.

``Then control was suddenly lost,'' Hall said.

Hall's account came from an initial review of the cockpit voice recorder,
which was recovered Wednesday from the debris of the MD-83.

Remote operated vehicles searching the ocean floor today found the flight
data recorder, the companion box that has details of the plane's mechanical
operation, said John Hammerschmidt, a member of the NTSB.

Its discovery came hours after searchers recovered the pinger for the recorder,
which was no longer attached to the device. Around midday the recorder was
being brought to the ocean's surface.

The NTSB has also begun analyzing a recording of a radio call from Flight
261's pilots to a Seattle maintenance crew about the stabilizer problem minutes
before the crash.

Investigators said witnesses saw no signs of fire or smoke when the jet hit
the water in one piece Monday, killing everyone on board during the planned
flight from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to San Francisco and Seattle.

As the plane passed over Anacapa Island, just off the Calilifornia coast,
a witness heard several popping sounds and watched the jet turn and hit the
water, Hammerschmidt said Wednesday.

``The aircraft was twisting, flying erratically, nose rocking,'' he told
reporters late Wednesday. He also said other pilots nearby described the
plane as ``tumbling, spinning, nose-down, continuous roll, corkscrewing and
inverted.''

Ships with side-scan sonar equipment that can make detailed maps of debris
on the ocean floor began searching the crash site today.

The wreckage is well below the 300-foot safety limit for divers - and most
of the bodies are believed pinned in the debris on the bottom of the ocean.
Searchers have recovered the remains of only four passengers.

Investigators expected choppier waters as a light storm moved toward Southern
California today. The beaches were mostly clear of debris, but rough seas
could begin to wash ashore more remnants of the craft.

The search for survivors was called off Wednesday over the protest of some
family members who held out hope that someone might still be alive in the
chilly waters of the Santa Barbara Channel. The search had gone on for 41
hours and included dozens of Coast Guard, Navy and civilian ships, boats
and aircraft that combed a 1,100-square-mile area.

Three buses carrying 100 relatives of crash victims left Los Angeles with
a police escort for a private memorial today at Point Mugu. They carried
red and white bouquets of baby's breath and carnations along with white carton
boxes that contained a lunch, suntan lotion, tissue, pen and paper.

``The purpose of (the pen and paper) is to allow them to ... either keep
a journal, write a note and leave it or maybe communicate their feelings
to one another,'' said Barbara Jean, a worker with the Red Cross, which helped
organize the trip.

On Wednesday, a jammed horizontal stabilizer forced an American Airlines
MD-80 to return to Phoenix 20 minutes after it took off for Dallas on Wednesday.
The plane is part of the same series of aircraft as the Alaska MD-83 that
crashed.

On Wednesday, The Seattle Times reported the plane that crashed this week
had horizontal stabilizer problems on its trip to Puerto Vallarta, its
next-to-the-last flight.

Hall said today he did not think such reports were ``exactly correct. ...
What we are doing this morning in California, we will be interviewing the
crew of the previous flight.''

Airline spokesman Jack Evans in Seattle also denied the report: ``We stand
by what we said earlier this week, which is that we're not aware of any
maintenance anomalies with this aircraft.''

AP-NY-02-03-00 1550EST

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alaska Air Flight Recorder Recovered

.c The Associated Press

PORT HUENEME, Calif. (Feb. 2, 00) - An unmanned vehicle recovered one of
the ''black box'' recorders Wednesday that could hold the answer to the cause
of the Alaska Airlines crash.

The remote controlled vehicle, operating in up to 700 feet of water, brought
up the cockpit voice recorder, said Terry Williams, spokesman for the National
Transportation Safety Board.

A similar device that records flight data was not immediately recovered,
he said.

Searchers had a fix on the data recorder using pinging signals emitted by
its locator beacon, he said.

The recorder - actually painted bright orange despite its popular name -
was brought to the surface clutched in the mechanical claw of the boxy yellow
submersible.

Alaska Flight 261 plunged into the Pacific off Southern California on Monday
as the pilots struggled with mechanical problems. Killed were 88 crew and
passengers returning home to San Francisco and Seattle from vacations in
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

Investigators said Wednesday they were looking into a report that the plane
had problems with a part of the tail called the horizontal stabilizer on
the flight to Mexico.

Records of radio conversations between the pilots and air traffic controllers
showed the crew was struggling with stabilizer problems before the plane
crashed.

Authorities also began analyzing recordings of the pilots' conversations
with a Seattle maintenance crew, which were made while the pilots tried to
control the plane in the terrifying moments before it nose dived into the
sea.

Earlier, dozens of ships were ordered to abandon the search for survivors
and shift their focus to recovering flight recorders and wreckage.

The search for survivors was called off over the protest of some family members
who held out hope that some of the plane's passengers and crew might still
be alive in the chilly waters of the Santa Barbara Channel.

On shore, investigators interviewed airline employees about the report that
a different crew of pilots complained of problems with the aircraft's horizontal
stabilizer as they headed toward Puerto Vallarta on Monday.

The stabilizer keeps the plane flying level.

Alaska Airlines spokesman Jack Evans in Seattle denied the Seattle Times
report: ''We stand by what we said earlier this week, which is that we're
not aware of any maintenance anomalies with this aircraft.''

NTSB member John Hammerschmidt confirmed that the agency was looking into
the newspaper report. Pilots from the earlier flight were to be interviewed,
he said.

Meanwhile a jammed horizontal stabilizer forced an American Airlines MD-80
to land in Phoenix 20 minutes after takeoff Wednesday, said Phil Frame, a
spokesman for the NTSB in Washington. The plane, which had been headed toward
Dallas, is part of the same series of aircraft as the Alaska MD-83 that crashed.

Federal investigators were having the flight data recorder from the American
Airlines plane sent to them.

Frame knew of no link between the American Airlines incident and the crash
investigation, but ''it may have piqued their interest.''

Investigators interviewed pilots who were flying in the area of the crash
and may have seen Flight 261 go down.

The audio tapes of the pilots and the Seattle maintenance crew apparently
capture an exchange that took place as the pilots tried to troubleshoot what
was going wrong, Jim Hall, chairman of the National Transportation Safety
Board, said on morning talk shows.

''Obviously these pilots were struggling to maintain control of this aircraft
for a significant period of time. It's going to be very important to this
investigation,'' Hall said.

The tape was handed over Tuesday to federal investigators by Alaska Airlines
in Washington, D.C., Hall said.

The search for survivors had gone on for 41 hours and included dozens of
Coast Guard, Navy and civilian ships, boats and aircraft that combed a
1,100-square-mile area.

About 80 family members had arrived at an assistance center in the Renaissance
Hotel in Los Angeles by Tuesday night and another 50 were expected to show
up Wednesday, said Chris Thomas, an American Red Cross volunteer.

Many of those who had arrived at the hotel remained in a state of shock,
he said.

''I just want to know that our family members didn't suffer and that it was
just fast,'' said Janis Ost Ford, whose brother Bob Ost was on board the
plane.

Alaska Airlines and Red Cross officials planned to take family members to
the coast near the crash site Thursday.

''They will be able to deal with the emotional responses; they'll be able
to see the search-and-rescue recovery process,'' Thomas said.

As the operation entered a third day, several ships used for salvage arrived
at Port Hueneme, including Navy vessels equipped with advanced side-scan
sonar that can be used to map debris on the bottom.

The wreckage is about 700 feet down. Divers cannot operate below about 300
feet, so the search is being carried out by three unmanned vehicles.

If one of the plane's two recorders - the flight data recorder - was programmed
to monitor the stabilizer, it might reveal the condition of the stabilizer
when the jet went down. If not, officials would have to deduce what happened
by studying how other systems performed before the crash.

AP-NY-02-02-00 2122EST

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Final Minutes of Flight 261

.c The Associated Press

Summary of the last radio exchanges of Alaska Airlines Flight 261, described
by John Hammerschmidt of the National Transportation Safety Board. These
are not direct quotes from pilots and controllers, but are based on what
NTSB called a ''rough transcript.''

Times are Pacific Standard.

-3:55 p.m.: Last routine transmission before problems are reported. Los Angeles
ATC (air traffic control center located in Palmdale, Calif.) clears Flight
261 to head for San Francisco at 31,000 feet.

-4:10: Flight 261 advises it is having control difficulties and descends
to 26,000 feet.

-Seconds later: Flight 261 reports it is at 23,700 feet. Discussion about
pilots having trouble controlling the plane.

-Flight 261 advises it is ''kind of stabilized,'' in Hammerschmidt's words,
and is going to do some troubleshooting.

-Flight 261 asks for clearance to fly between 20,000 and 25,000 feet.

-ATC gives clearance.

-4:14: ATC asks if Flight 261 needs anything.

-Flight 261 responds that pilots are still working on problem.

-Seconds later: Discussion between air traffic controllers about handing
off control of plane from one sector to the next.

-4:15: ATC traffic control hands off to a new controller who was aware of
its problems.

-Seconds later: Flight 261 advises it has a jammed stabilizer and difficulty
maintaining altitude. Pilots think they can maintain altitude and land at
Los Angeles International Airport.

-4:16: Flight 261 cleared to land at LAX. ATC asks if flight needs a lower
altitude.

-Flight 261 says it needs to get to 10,000 feet and change configuration
- set the wing flaps to slow the plane down - while over water.

-ATC issues clearance to 17,000 feet.

-Flight 261 says OK and advises it needs a block of altitudes. Last known
transmission of Flight 261.

-4:17: ATC advises Flight 261 to contact another sector on a different frequency.
Transmission not acknowledged.

-4:21: Flight 261 is lost off radar.

AP-NY-02-01-00 1820EST

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Crash Comes Amid Rough Times for Alaska Airlines

Carrier Has No Room To Grow, Repair Records Investigated

By MICHAEL J. MARTINEZ

.c The Associated Press

SEATTLE (Feb. 2, 00) - It's said that the closest thing Alaska has to a mass
transit system is Alaska Airlines.

For 19 Alaskan cities and towns, from metropolitan Anchorage to rural King
Salmon and remote Barrow, Alaska Airlines serves as a link to the rest of
the United States.

In each of the last 27 years, the airline has carried more people from Alaska
to the lower 48 states than any other airline, according to Alaska Air Group,
the company which operates Alaska Airlines and the smaller Horizon Airlines,
a regional carrier in the Pacific Northwest.

The airline, which has the image of an Eskimo painted on the tails of its
planes, also ferries people throughout Alaska and is the leading carrier
in Washington and Oregon as well.

And until Monday, it could also boast it was among the safest air carriers
in the United States.

The airline had gone 24 years without a fatal accident before one of the
company's jets plummeted into the sea off the California coast Monday night,
taking 88 people down with it.

The crash comes amid a rough patch for Alaska Airlines, which serves more
than 40 cities in Alaska, Canada, Mexico and five Western states.

The company had to severely reduce costs in the mid-1990s to stay competitive
with Southwest Airlines and Northwest Airlines as they pushed into the Seattle
market, where Alaska is based. Today, with both competitors dominant in the
mountain states and California, Alaska finds itself hemmed in - strong at
home, but with little room to grow.

``It is not a growth airline,'' Harris said.

Also, in the past year, Alaska Airlines has been the subject of federal grand
jury investigation in Oakland over maintenance and repair records for some
MD-80s.

A Federal Aviation Administration report concluded that records were falsified
on two MD-80s that made 840 flights in late 1998 and early 1999. Because
of the altered records, the aircraft were considered ``unairworthy,'' FAA
documents said.

John Kelly, chairman and chief executive of Alaska Airlines, said the plane
that crashed was not one of those involved in the investigation. An airline
spokesman said the investigation focused on record keeping, not the safety
of the airplanes.

Until this week, Alaska Airlines' most recent fatal crash was on April 5,
1976, when one passenger was killed when an airplane overran the runway in
Ketchikan, Alaska.

The airline traces its roots to McGee Airways, which started flying between
Anchorage and Bristol Bay with a three-passenger plane in 1933. The Alaska
Airlines name was adopted in 1944; it acquired Horizon Air in 1986.

The rough terrain and weather in Alaska prompted the company to become an
early adopter of new technologies. In 1989, an Alaska Airlines 727 jet was
the first commercial craft to land in dense fog using a heads-up guidance
system, which projects flight information on a transparent screen, allowing
the pilot to monitor instruments without having to look down at the control
panel.

AP-NY-02-02-00 0046EST

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Grand Jury Investigating Airline

By MICHELLE LOCKE

.c The Associated Press

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) - A federal grand jury has been investigating a
whistle-blower's complaints of maintenance irregularities at the Alaska Airlines
servicing center in Oakland.

With three fatal crashes in six decades of flying, Alaska Airlines has one
of the best safety records in the business and airline officials say the
alleged violations involved record-keeping only, not safety issues.

However, the grand jury is investigating a senior mechanic's allegations
of irregularities in maintenance and repair records for a handful of MD-80
jetliners. The Federal Aviation Administration also was investigating the
airline, said Mitch Barker, an FAA spokesman.

Barker declined Tuesday to discuss details of the FAA investigation, which
he said is on hold pending the outcome of the federal grand jury probe. However,
he said the jet that crashed Monday carrying 88 passengers was not involved
in the probe.

The downed airplane was a Boeing MD-83, part of the MD-80 series aircraft
built by McDonnell Douglas that is the workhorse of Alaska Airlines' fleet.

FAA records show the company's maintenance procedures came under scrutiny
in late 1998 after an Alaska Airlines senior mechanic, John Liotine, said
the inspection of an MD-80 jetliner had gone awry and fallen behind schedule,
resulting in instructions to less-experienced mechanics to perform some tasks
out of sequence to save time.

Liotine told The Seattle Times he told a company vice president about serious
maintenance irregularities in early December, then went to the FAA after
the executive failed to act.

In a written statement to the FAA, Liotine wrote that the company did not
correct problems and lacked ``interest by our management to honestly deal
with these causes.''

The FAA inspector in Oakland concluded that Alaska allowed two MD-80 jets
to be flown 844 times from Oct. 7, 1998, through Jan. 19, 1999, ``in an
unairworthy condition'' because portions of document maintenance records
remained unfilled.

The FAA discussed recommending that the mechanic licenses of three airline
supervisors in Oakland be revoked and the company be fined $44,000. But Barker
said Tuesday there had been no formal penalty notice issued because of the
grand jury investigation.

Liotine's union later removed him as president of its local in Oakland and
Alaska placed him on leave with pay for a period last fall. He told several
news organizations that he does not want to talk about the investigation.

Until Monday's crash of Flight 261, the most recent Alaska Airlines fatal
accident was in 1976, when one person died as a Boeing 727 overran a runway
at Ketchikan, Alaska. In 1971, 111 died when an Alaska Airlines 727 crashed
into a mountain on approach to Juneau, Alaska.

AP-NY-02-02-00 0657EST

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alaska Air Flight Recorder Recovered

.c The Associated Press

PORT HUENEME, Calif. (Feb. 2, 00) - An unmanned vehicle recovered one of
the ''black box'' recorders Wednesday that could hold the answer to the cause
of the Alaska Airlines crash.

The remote controlled vehicle, operating in up to 700 feet of water, brought
up the cockpit voice recorder, said Terry Williams, spokesman for the National
Transportation Safety Board.

A similar device that records flight data was not immediately recovered,
he said.

Searchers had a fix on the data recorder using pinging signals emitted by
its locator beacon, he said.

The recorder - actually painted bright orange despite its popular name -
was brought to the surface clutched in the mechanical claw of the boxy yellow
submersible.

Alaska Flight 261 plunged into the Pacific off Southern California on Monday
as the pilots struggled with mechanical problems. Killed were 88 crew and
passengers returning home to San Francisco and Seattle from vacations in
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

Investigators said Wednesday they were looking into a report that the plane
had problems with a part of the tail called the horizontal stabilizer on
the flight to Mexico.

Records of radio conversations between the pilots and air traffic controllers
showed the crew was struggling with stabilizer problems before the plane
crashed.

AP-NY-02-02-00 2112EST

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alaska Airlines Crash Probe Begins

By JEFF WILSON

.c The Associated Press

OXNARD, Calif. (Feb. 1, 2000) - Investigators trying to learn what sent an
Alaska Airlines jet with 88 people aboard plunging into the Pacific Ocean
had at least one clue today: the pilot sought an emergency landing after
reporting problems with equipment designed to keep the plane aloft.

No survivors had been found by this morning. Several bodies were recovered
from the 58-degree water, Coast Guard Lt. Chuck Diorio said, but he could
not give a specific number.

The Coast Guard and commercial squid boats continued to search the debris
field 10 miles from shore in water from 300 feet to 750 feet deep. As the
stench of airline fuel hung in the air, the boats used nets to haul in grim
reminders of lives lost: a tennis shoe, a stuffed animal and a number of
small souvenirs from Mexico.

``Every resource is out there to find people,'' Coast Guard Capt. George
Wright said. ``We're actively searching for survivors.''

Flight 261 from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to San Francisco and Seattle hit
the water 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles International Airport at 4:36
p.m. Monday. The weather was clear at the time.

Moments before the crash - described by a witness as a nose dive - one of
the two pilots radioed that he was having trouble with ``stabilizer trim''
and asked to be diverted to Los Angeles for an emergency landing, airline
spokesman Jack Evans said.

``Radar indicates it fell from 17,000 feet and then was lost from radar,''
San Francisco airport spokesman Ron Wilson told KRON-TV.

The flight was normal and stable until the crew reported control problems,
said a source with close knowledge of the investigation, speaking on condition
of anonymity. Radar showed the plane, an MD-83, plummeting toward the sea
shortly afterward.

On MD-80 series airplanes, the horizontal stabilizer looks like a small wing
mounted on top of the tail. The stabilizer, which includes panels that pitch
the nose up and down, is brought into balance, or ``trimmed,'' from the cockpit.

If a plane loses its horizontal stabilizer, there is no way to keep the nose
pointed to the proper angle, and the aircraft will begin an uncontrollable
dive.

Evans said the plane had no previous stabilizer problems, and Federal Aviation
Administration spokesman John Clabes said it had never been in an accident.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators were expected to be on
hand by tonight.

``We will do anything and everything to find out exactly what transpired,''
airline Chairman John Kelly said late Monday.

A National Park Service ranger on Anacapa Island, off the coast of Oxnard,
saw the airliner go down and was first to report it, said spokeswoman Susan
Smith at the Channel Islands National Park headquarters in Ventura Harbor.

``He observed a jet going down in the Santa Barbara Channel. From his observation
it was nose first,'' Smith said.

There were 83 passengers and five crew members aboard, Evans said.

Of the passengers, 32 were bound for San Francisco, 47 for Seattle, three
were continuing on to Eugene, Ore., and one to Fairbanks, Alaska. The two
pilots were based in Los Angeles and the three flight attendants were based
in Seattle.

The passengers included three airline employees, four employees of sister
airline Horizon and 23 relatives or friends of the employees.

Both pilots were Alaska Airlines veterans. Capt. Ted Thompson, 53, was hired
Aug. 16, 1982, and had 10,400 flying hours with the company. First Officer
William Tansky, 57, was hired July 17, 1985, and had 8,047 flying hours with
the Seattle-based airline.

The plane itself was built by McDonnell Douglas, now part of Boeing, and
delivered to Alaska Airlines in 1992, said John Thom, a spokesman for Boeing's
Douglas aircraft unit.

Evans said the plane was serviced on Sunday, went through a low-level maintenance
check on Jan. 11 and had a more thorough routine check last January.

Alaska Airlines, which has the image of an Eskimo painted on the tails of
its planes, has an excellent safety record. It serves more than 40 cities
in Alaska, Canada, Mexico and five Western states.

It had two fatal accidents in the 1970s, both in Alaska.

The MD-80 series is a twin-jet version of the more widely known DC-9, with
a single aisle and an engine on each side of the tail. It went into service
in 1980 and of the 1,167 series planes delivered, Boeing reported last year,
only nine had been lost in accidents.

Before this week, the most recent fatal crash in the United States involving
an MD-80 series jet was last summer's American Airlines accident in Little
Rock, Ark. Eleven people died and 110 were injured when an MD-82 trying to
land in a storm ran off a runway, broke apart and caught fire.

OXNARD, Calif. (Jan. 31, 00) - An Alaska Airlines jet carrying 65 passengers
and five crew members from Mexico to San Francisco crashed Monday in the
Pacific Ocean after reporting mechanical difficulties.

Flight 261 from Puerto Vallarta was reported down 20 miles northwest of the
Los Angeles airport about 3:45 p.m., the Federal Aviation Administration
said. Pieces of wreckage could be seen in the water, but there was no sign
of survivors.

Cynthia Emery, FAA flight operations officer in Seattle, confirmed the number
of passengers and crew on the doomed jetliner.

FAA spokesman Mitch Barker said the plane was a Boeing 737. Boeing spokesman
Craig Martin said the company was told by Alaska Airlines that the plane
was an MD-80.

A Coast Guard helicopter, a Navy airplane and small boats were searching
a large field of debris rolling in swells off Point Mugu as darkness began
to descend on the ocean.

''Right now they are searching for survivors,'' said Coast Guard Lt. Jeanne
Reincke. ''They see a large debris field, but that's all we've heard from
them.''

The jet's crew had reported mechanical difficulties and asked to land at
Los Angeles, said Ron Wilson, a spokesman for the San Francisco airport.

''Radar indicates it fell from 17,000 feet and then was lost from radar,''
Wilson told KRON-TV in San Francisco.

The flight was scheduled to continue to Seattle after San Francisco.

On Sunday, a Kenya Airways flight crashed into the Atlantic Ocean shortly
after take off from Abidjan, Ivory Coast. The Airbus 310 carried 10 crew
members and 169 passengers. At least 10 people survived.

Last Oct. 31, EgyptAir Flight 990 plummeted into the ocean 60 miles south
of the Massachusetts island of Nantucket. All 217 people aboard the Boeing
767 were killed.

The 737 is the most commonly used commercial airplane in the world.

Alaska Airlines has an excellent safety record and has built itself into
a western power by flying north-south routes on the West Coast. Its headquarters
are in Seattle.

The chief flight inspector at the airport in Puerto Vallarta, a resort on
Mexico's Pacific coast, said Alaska Airlines operates a varying number of
flights from there every day.

Airport employees in Puerto Vallarta said the airline operates several flights
from the Pacific coast resort to San Jose, San Francisco and other California
cities.